7776

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7776
• Author: Paddock, W. A. and W. C. Weiss.
• Title: A Primer on Colorado Water Law.
• USFW Year: 1986.
• USFW - Doc Type: \
• Copyright Material: NO

I. ORIGINS OF IRRIGATION PRACTICES IN COLORADO 1/
The history of early water resources development in Colorado con-
sists in part of recorded documentary evidence and in part of
tales and traditions passed on orally from generation to genera-
tion.
While the original states were discussing the pros and cons of
ratifying the United States Constitution, one Juan Bautista de
Anzi (or Anga), then Governor of the Spanish Province of New Mex-
ico, in the year 1787, sent a group of twenty Spanish farmers to
initiate an irrigation project in collaboration with the Jupe
tribe of Comanche Indians. This project, located on the St.
Charles River near its confluence with the Arkansas River, about
8 miles east of the present city of Pueblo, was abandoned after a
lapse of several years.
The next known attempt at irrigation was made by the Bent Broth-
ers in the year 1832, on the north bank of the Arkansas River,
midway between the present cities of La Junta and Las Animas. A
ditch was constructed taking its water from the river for the ir-
rigation of 40 acres. The crops planted and grown wert corn,
beans, squash, and melons. The project failed after a few years
because tribes of Indians, who congregated near Fort Bent during
the growing season, either purposely or inadvertently permitted
their ponies to graze upon and destroy the growing crops.
The next irrigation enterprise in Colorado was begun in 1841, at
a settlement near the mouth of the Fountain River, the progenitor
of the present city of Pueblo. This program continued until 1854
when the inhabitants were practically exterminated by "friendly"
Indians.
In 1852, construction was commenced on the Peoples' Ditch in the
San Luis Valley of Colorado on the Rio Grande River. The ditch
has been used continuously since completion and has a decreed
priority dating to 1852, making it the earliest decreed ditch in
Colorado.
About this same time several other
est on E1 Rio de Las Animas Perdid,
Lost Souls in Purgatory), commonly
about 20 miles downstream from the
ditch was not used continuously in
operation today.
projects were begun, the larg-
Ds en Purgatorio (The River of
called the Picketwire River,
City of Trinidad. While the
the beginning, it is still in
Following the gold rush of 1859, a great influx of people, famil-
iar for generations with the practice of irrigation in New Mexi-
co, came into Colorado and immediately constructed fairly exten-